clive_t's Garden Line - The Fall and Rise of the Scampington Chipside Garden Railway

Thanks for your kind comments chaps!

More modest progress today - I made a start clearing a trench for a proper track bed to be built on the stretch leading to the pond bridge:



Sadly it's a bit too shallow for a whole celcon, so I will have to improvise somehow!

 

Bit more work on the girder bridge today - a base of Games Workshop silver closely followed by a good old slosh of armour wash:



Thankfully I spotted in time that the walkways are moulded with wood grain, so I will be picking those out in some suitable tones in due course.

 

Thanks Paul, I am thinking of applying some areas of rust colour/texture and then doing a salt-weathered painted finish, which when done will hopefully show peeling paint and patches of rust and bare metal. That's the theory at the moment anyway!

 

Thanks Paul, wow no pressure then!

I have done this technique only once before, and that was for a small oil drum that was going to be part of a diorama I was working on many years ago. I can certainly do it as a separate thread, but it will be 'warts and all', i.e. if I do something and mess it up, you'll get to see me mess it up!

 

Absolutely agree Paul, many of the ideas and techniques shared here can be applied regardless of the scale of the model, so I am always happy to read up on what others are doing as much as I enjoy sharing my own progress.

If you mean the ones on the outside, they were part of the moulding of the bridge model. The ones on the inside were made by me with an embossing tool 'borrowed' from 'er indoors, who is a keen crafter and has all manner of whizzy tools and bits & bobs lurking in her craft palace.

I would very much like to see you post your pics on here!

 

I've just created a separate 'salt weathering' thread, as suggested:

http://platform1mrc.com/p1mrc/index.php?threads/salt-weathering.3453/

 

Thanks Gloria, it does indeed take time - and, unlike our 'indoor' colleagues some decent weather!

Thanks Mr Dublo, it was certainly a game-changer last year when I managed to get a loco running all round the circuit without having to first spend 2 or more hours preparing the line, seeking out and remedying electrical dead spots etc. I think this year I will aim to get a live steam loco running - for one thing, I would imagine it would be a jaw-dropping moment for my grandchildren, you never know it might keep them quiet for a few brief seconds!

Totally agree about ivy, it was my single biggest mistake by far. Still, lessons learned I guess.

I've not done anything railway-related since last year, but hopefully with some decent Spring weather in the coming weeks I may very well find myself rejoining battle with it. When I do, you'll all be the first to know!

 

Hi folks, a break in the cold windy weather plus a bit of sunshine, and work can resume - tentatively of course, as the next batch of bad weather is due tomorrow we are reliably informed

Prime target for me was to steal a march on the jungle of dandelions and other assorted interlopers and get them evicted before they have a chance to set seed and thereby compound the issue! I would imagine that not doing so last year is the main reason I have this amount of work this year:



Yesterday I thought I would tackle the lower part, and rescue the lavender plants still in their pots from last year:



Then today I turned my attention to the top part - those tap roots can go deep! Thankfully the soil is quite damp (no surprises there!) so getting a hand fork in there and dislodging them was not too difficult. A couple of hours and one large bag of evicted weeds later:



Still a fair bit to do, but we are on our way!

 

Today's fine, sunny weather (on a public holiday in the UK... what sorcery is this???) allowed me to take stock of what I needed to continue with upgrading the track bed so something a lot less weed-prone. As it turned out, I now know I need another bag of cement and 3 bags of sand! I took the opportunity to use up the last of last year's consignment on making a start here at Dewey's End:





So, we're off and running again - well, apart from having to get the sand and cement in of course!